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Sep 24 2008   1:12AM GMT

Software for Secure Computing: Trend Micro’s RUBotted



Posted by: Ken Harthun
spam, Virus, Botnet, Anti-malware, Secure Computing, IRC bot

I stumbled across this nifty free tool when running an online scan at Trend Micro’s HouseCall site. Botnets are a big problem, accounting for most of the spam on the Internet, not to mention their use in stealing financial information and launching denial-of-service (DoS) attacks. RUBotted (Beta) “…monitors your computer for suspicious activities and regularly checks with an online service to identify behavior associated with Bots. Upon discovering a potential infection, RUBotted prompts you to scan and clean your computer.” Note that this tool doesn’t clean anything–you still have to use antivirus software. Alternatively, you can take advantage of one of the many online malware scanners.

The tool runs on Windows 2000, Windows XP Home and Professional, Windows 2003 Server, and Windows Vista (32-bit only), providing the latest service packs are installed. There’s one caveat, however:  Trend says, “RUBotted cannot protect computers running Panda Internet Security 2008.”

I hope that this effort by Trend starts a trend (pun intended) of vendors providing similar secure computing software, perhaps incorporating bot removal tools to boot. We’ll see.

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Sep 13 2008   6:32PM GMT

Software for Secure Computing: Microsoft Malicious Software Removal Tool



Posted by: Ken Harthun
Security, Microsoft Windows, Malware, Anti-virus, Anti-malware, Secure Computing, IRC bot

It’s funny how sometimes we take for granted things like Microsoft’s Malicious Software Removal Tool (MSRT). That’s probably because it doesn’t do much to make its presence known. Every month, Microsoft offers MSRT (890830) through automatic updates and on the Windows Update site. Once installed, the tool runs in the background and quietly does its job.  Many people don’t even know that MSRT can be run from the Microsoft.com website or downloaded and run at will.

System administrators and security researchers benefit from the reporting component that MSRT uses to send malware data to Microsoft. The Microsoft Malware Protection Center Threat Research & Response Blog regularly provides reports on the state of security and is an excellent resource for Internet security issues. “Cleaning Over 10 Million IRC Bots,” posted on September 8, 2008, for example, has a graph that clearly shows a general downward trend in IRC bots activity.

No doubt about it: MSRT and the related websites are powerful additions to anyone’s secure computing toolkit.

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